Critical Essay by Justin Doherty

In the following essay, Doherty delineates various critical interpretations of The Queen of Spades and offers one of his own based on a discussion of Pushkin's main fictional paradigms.

Pikovaya dama (The Queen of Spades) is generally considered to be one of the most significant works in nineteenth century Russian literature; it is also one of the most frequently written about. Even so, it is my feeling that studies of this text have left fundamental questions unasked; partly this is a result of a traditional bias in Pushkin scholarship in Russia as well as in the West. Whatever the reasons for this, it is surely necessary both to challenge certain received ideas about Pushkin's major works, and to explore...